Cruxlux

Cruxlux definition

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Cruxlux about?
What can I do here?
Can I integrate Cruxlux into my own site or intranet?
Who's behind Cruxlux?
Why should I register?
What are all the buttons on the debate page?
How do you decide what assertions move up within a debate, or what answers to questions move up?
Can you explain the user ratings?
How do I make text bold or italicized in my posts and essays? How do I include a link or other BB Code?
Do I need to challenge someone specific to start a debate?
What are appropriate topics?
Can you put in my idea?
How did you think of the idea?
Can we collaborate on my idea?
  • What is Cruxlux about?
  • Shining a light on the crux of things. If something's true, it should withstand scrutiny, and if something's wrong, we should be able to help uncover that. With our novel and powerful technology, we allow interactive back-and-forth between different views, making it easy to see counterpoints to a given argument and to identify the root causes of disagreement on an question. Besides participating on this site, the Cruxlux platform can be embedded on other sites, to enable their visitors to participate in inter-blog debates and chats.
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  • What can I do here?
  • If you have a question, post it here and get insightful answers. If you have a point to make (about politics, sports, or anything else), join an existing debate or start a new one. You can debate a general assertion, or a specific blog post or news article, for example. Our site lets you challenge other individuals to debates -- so if you think someone in the blogosphere is wrong, or just want to learn more about their perspective, you can call out for a debate with them. Our technology ensures that both sides in a debate are represented by their strongest points and that you can see easily see counterpoints to an argument.
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  • Can I integrate Cruxlux into my own site or intranet?
  • Yes, and we happen to have a page with details on this! It is possible to link in with our main site (free), to embed the platform on your site and allow your visitors to fully participate in debates from there (also free), and to obtain a closed, technology solution.
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  • Who's behind Cruxlux?
  • If you really, really want to know, here's a bit about the founders. (But the questions below are much more interesting!)
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  • Why should I register?
  • Registration allows you to participate fully in the site, judging posts and making them. It also allows you to make and receive challenges, and to view personalized suggestions on discussions you might be interested in. Last but not least, participating as a registered user allows you to build up strength on the site so that your moderations carry more weight, and to perhaps earn a following of people who read your essays.
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  • What are all the buttons on the debate page?
  • The arrow ('>' or 'V') on the left side of an assertion can be used to expand or collapse the counterarguments to that assertion. Clicking the 'Give points' button indicates that you think an argument or answer is a strong one and increases its score by however many points you have at the time. The 'Report abuse' button is to be used only for indicating abuse (not simply that you disagree with the point). It could be used to flag spam, vandalism, indecent or offensive material, or irrelevant hijacking. The 'Focus' button on a post switches you to a view where that post is the root (makes it convenient if you've gone down a few levels). The 'Add response' button allows you to add either a counterargument or a supporting argument Try the site out and we think you'll find it fairly intuitive, at least compared to how long this paragraph was.
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  • How do you decide what assertions move up within a debate, or what answers to questions move up?
  • This is based upon the strength of the assertions or answers, as judged by the number of people (and which people -- whether they're ones who have been deemed to judge non-abusively in the past) say it's a good point for the given side (not by whether or not we agree or endorse the view). Our system is designed to be robust against malicious gaming, and mischief results in the user's various credibility scores (see your profile) becoming diminished. Conversely, active and honest participation results in those scores increasing.
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  • Can you explain the user ratings?
  • Graph
    Strength:How strong your posts have been, as judged by the scoring ("Give Points") of other users with more weight given to people who themselves make strong points
    Leadership:Represents a combination of inviting people/communities, starting debates, and how many people you bring to debates (no fun to have a debate with only you there!)
    Judgment:Based upon your moderations. For example, If you click Report Abuse on posts that really are vandalism, spam, duplicates, abusive, etc., then the score goes up. If you click it on posts that aren't (for example to sabotage an opponent), your judgement goes down. Likewise If you give points to a post that high credibility members (according to above metrics) of the community consider strong, your score will increase.
    Participation: Represents how many points you've been awarded recently. This encourages you to participate with lots of high quality posts but frowns on duplicate or poor posts.
    You can see your ratings on your profile home page as well as when you login at the top of every page.

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  • How do I make text bold or italicized in my posts and essays? How do I include a link or other BB Code?
  • The site supports most standard "BB Code" tags. We have a help page with details.
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  • Do I need to challenge someone specific to start a debate?
  • No. You're encouraged to challenge someone specific if you want them to represent the opposing view of your own, but you may also just issue a public challenge that anyone may accept.
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  • What are appropriate topics?
  • Users are encouraged to flag posts that are racist, personally abusive, or otherwise offensive to basic morality and simple civilized behavior. These will get hidden. Beyond this, there are many ways to use the site -- you can see the variety looking around the site.
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  • Can you put in my idea?
  • Maybe. We're working on improvements already, but are always interested in hearing your suggestions. Please use our contact form. Also, subscribe to our blog to keep up with the latest Cruxlux news.
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  • How did you think of the idea?
  • There are many blogs out there, but by and large, they each cater to like-minded people with little or no cross pollination. These blogs can take a single issue but have entirely different takes on it, to such an extent that they seem to be talking about entirely different topics. This is because some or all of them emphasize certain aspects of a debate and ignore others, neglecting critical examination of their assertions. This site forces people to confront counterpoints and let's people see where folks disagree, getting down to the crux of a question. By making the platform available for embedding in blogs, we also hope to increase give-and-take between them and increase the impact of blogosphere analysis.
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  • Can we collaborate on my idea?
  • Let us know what your idea is. We can imagine many fruitful collaboration with organizations in a variety of spheres, because debate and knowledge have a role in so many places. Please get in touch with our contact form and include a link to your organization's site.
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©Cruxlux, 2007-2008.

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